


The Final Problem (alternative)

by 221b_hound



Series: The Pure and Simple Truth [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Child Death, Drowning, Flashbacks, Kid Mycroft, M/M, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, Story: The Adventure of the Three Garridebs, amputee Mycroft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-11-21 13:53:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11358840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: Everyone travels their own road through grief; and some wounds of the heart take decades to heal. And some old truths turn out not to be the truth at all. With the Holmes and Watson family gathered at Musgrave Hall, an old tragedy is soon to be revealed as a mystery after all.





	1. Chapter 1

“We’re going to Musgrave Hall,” said Sherlock. “This weekend.”

As bombshells went, it wasn’t large, it was primarily metaphorical, and it left the windows intact, which was a nice change.

“We’re what?” asked John, arching a suspicious eye at Sherlock.

“You recall. The Holmes family seat. Before it goes on the market next month. Mummy thought it would be perfectly splendid to have a family gathering to farewell the crumbling pile.” A hint of waspishness was in his tone.

“And you agreed to go?”

“When my mother wants a thing done, generally it is done.  Even Mycroft can’t wriggle out of it.”

“He’s not as practised at sliding out of things as you are. You’re practically a buttered eel.”

“Thank you for that mental image. And even so. Our presence is required. Anyway, aren’t you always on about wanting to know all about _my mysterious past_.”

“Don’t be such a twat. It’s not abnormal for me to want to know what you were like as a kid. I want some stories to tell Rosie. God knows we never got enough of them about Mary.”

That little hitch was still there in John’s voice when he said her name. Well, it was there when Sherlock said it too. Sherlock caught John’s hand up in his.

“So now is your opportunity to grill the relatives on all the sordid details. Speaking of which, I’ve hired a motorhome for the duration so that I have somewhere to escape, so it won’t be all bad.”

“Only fairly bad.”

“Yes. But at least Watson won’t have to sleep in a draughty ex-nursery, and we won’t have to listen to the walls creak all night.”

“Don’t you have a case on?”

“Wrapped it up this morning.”

“You didn’t ask me to…”

“It was very deeply dull, John.”

“Will the weekend be much better?”

“I doubt it. But Harry has been invited. Perhaps we can amuse ourselves watching her wind up Mycroft.”

John finally smiled. “Ha. Yeah. Though I don’t know if wind up is the word. He looks more confused than the rest of us put together that he seems to like her.”

A muffled, cranky cough emerged from the baby monitor. John jumped to his feet and headed through the kitchen to their room, where Rosie had been set down for a nap. He returned with her in his arms, nose brushing against her hair.

“You hungry, hmm?” he patted her leg as she grabbed his shirt in little fists and bumped her forehead against his chin. “Ready to try some more mushy peas. Papa made them himself. Yes he did. Yes he did.”

Rosie gurgled and drooled on him a bit while Sherlock fetched the little pot of strained pea puree, thinned with a little formula, which she’d loved yesterday, but hated this morning. John had got most of it out of Sherlock’s hair, where she’d wiped it.

John sat on the floor with her, so Rosie could sit up between his bent knees. Cradling her while she fed wasn’t the best option now she was trying out solid foods, but Rosie still fretted unless he or Sherlock were close to her. She seemed to like this though, sitting on a soft blanket between their knees, able to clutch at their hands or legs, surrounded by warmth and safety, watching her fathers as they talked to her and encouraged her to try new foods. Rosie, it had to be said, also found it enormous fun to smear purees that did not meet with her approval all over Daddy and Papa’s clothes, hands, hair and faces.

This afternoon it was back in favour, even though her tongue thrust reflex occasionally deposited a blob of it on her bib, John’s shirt or her blanket.

Despite John’s apparent crankiness, he laughed as Rosie wiped pea-green fingers on his knee. “Little grub,” he said fondly. “Do you want to visit Nanna Lea and Poppy Giles?”

Rosie made a happy noise and banged her hands on his knees.

“That’s settled then,” said Sherlock. Sherlock bent to drop a kiss on John’s head, bent further to kiss Rosie’s head, and she grabbed him by the shirt, leaving pea-green fingerprints.

“Excellent work, Watson,” he told her, “Always leave an evidence trail. Unless you’re committing a crime, then don’t. I’m saving _those_ lessons up for Christmas.”

“Twat,” said John, but he was laughing. He took hold of Sherlock’s smeared lapel and drew him down for a brief kiss before, almost self-consciously, he broke away.

Rosie squealed and smeared pea puree on both their faces before sucking the remains off her own fingers.

“Your daughter’s a menace,” said John.

“Yes,” said Sherlock, beaming proudly, “She is.”

*

Harry found Mycroft in his wheelchair at the far end of the Musgrave Hall drive, half concealed behind an English Oak tree.

“You left a trail of wheel tracks on the drive, you know,” she said good-naturedly in the face of his scowl, “Even I couldn’t miss it.”

“Go away.”

“Is this a private sulk, or can anyone play?”

“I am not in the mood, Harry.”

“Fuck you, Mycroft,” she replied without heat. She plucked a cigarette out of the packet in her pocket, lit it and passed it over. “Come on then. Have a fag and a good old bitch session. What is it today? Sherlock’s oiled out of coming? Your Mum said you can bake your own bloody biscuits? The Isle of Man has decided to declare war on Ireland, and you can’t be fucked to get them out of another stupid scrape? No, wait. Don’t tell me. You’ve pitched a fit about the new prosthetic and you’ve set it on fire, and you’ve retreated out here to wait until the whole house burns down with it.”

“However did you guess?”

“Former budding arsonist here, Mike.”

“ _Roft_. Myc _roft_.”

“Sure thing, Mike.”

“Is that how it’s going to be? _Harriet_.”

“Fuck it. All right. You win, Mycroft.”

“You’ll find that’s usually the case.” He took in another lungful of smoke and blew it out haughtily.

Harry pulled a face. “You don’t fool me. I know how to deal with bullies. I set fire to their houses and their vintage Triumph cars.”

“Are you threatening to set fire to my wheelchair?”

“Worse. I’m going to thread ribbons and bows all through the wheels and parade you around town like the prettiest princess in the Downs.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t I?”

“My god, no wonder your brother was never fazed by Sherlock’s behaviour.”

“Yup. Tempered in the field of sibling battles, that boy. Got so he wasn’t even embarrassed by me anymore, and so I lost my power over him. It’s a story of tragedy and pathos, Mike.”

“For God’s sake, _my name is Mycroft_. Make a damned effort.” He took a violent drag on the cigarette and broke into a coughing fit.

“That bad, huh?”

He recovered his breath and took another careful drag. He blew smoke rings and watched them fade.

“I speak eight languages fluently. One of those is Latin. I say without pretension or particular pride that I am the smartest man in Great Britain, and probably in Europe…”

“No pretension or pride at all there, nope.”

“I have been instrumental in untold numbers of highly sensitive and deeply secret negotiations between international governments, espionage agencies and the pathetic squabbles of three British governing parties. I mastered the piano when I was six and have solved complex equations in my head since I was eight.”

“You are a clever clogs, then.”

“I am rated to fly three types of plane, I once deciphered an ostensibly indecipherable code in 47 hours, and I used to hold myself to an Olympic standard of fencing. So.” Mycroft curled his lip and hurled the cigarette against the oak. “Why. Can. I. Not. Master. A. Fucking. Leg.”

“Haven’t the foggiest.” Harry pulled out another cigarette, lit it, took a long drag, then passed this one to Mycroft as well. He took it and filled his lungs. “I don’t suppose you want the ra-ra talk from me, and I’m lousy at them anyway. Fuck that shit. Fuck that plastic leg. Fuck all the things, Mycroft. Tell you what though, I’m just about done with that peg leg of yours.”

“What?”

“The pirate leg. Your dad’s been teaching me to turn wood. I’ve got a nice design going for you. I think it’s the right height, and I’ve found some lovely red velvet to line it with, and some good soft leather to strap it on with. Soon as I can work out how to hide the whisky flask in there, you’re all set. One pirate leg coming up. Can’t wait to see the look on Sherlock’s face, can you?”

Mycroft’s mouth tilted up in a wry smile. “It will be rather good. Make sure you capture the moment to share on social media.”

“Of course. Better wait until Rosie’s with your mum and dad, though. Hardly takes his eyes off that kid when she’s around. Except to look at John of course. Soppy bastards.”

“Yes. Nauseating.”

“Completely. Happy cunts. Fuck ‘em.”

“I wouldn’t say happy, precisely.”

Harry sighed heavily. “Yeah. I know. But ‘less miserable cunts than they’ve been’ lacks poetry, don’t you think?”

“Quite.”

She held her hand out. He passed the cigarette to her and she took a puff before handing it back. Then she sat on the grass at his feet. The leg that ended so abruptly below his knee twitched a little. His hand dropped to his knee and he leaned back in the chair to glare resentfully at the branches of the oak overhead.

Harry took Mycroft’s hand and squeezed it. Mycroft hesitated, then squeezed back.

They sat like that, hand in hand, while he finished the cigarette under the shade of the oak.

*

“You grew up here?” John asked, standing outside the motor home, Rosie in his arms as he turned in a slow circle.

“For a while,” Sherlock said.

John smiled and spoke to Rosie. “Your Papa was an adorable little thing, baby girl. I’ve seen the pictures. Like a little cherub with all that hair stuffed under a pirate hat, waving a wooden sword, running all over the place.”

“Cherub, John. Really?”

“Really.” John grinned at him. “Cutest kids on the planet, you and your little friend.”

“Victor. Yes. Always off exploring, Mycroft hovering at the rear like an overprotective Saint Bernard. Sometimes we made him play the part of Horatio Nelson and he’d have to wear an eyepatch.”

“Did he complain much?”

“Not as much as you’d think.” Sherlock peered down the drive to where he could see Harry talking animatedly to Mycroft as she pushed his wheelchair back towards the house. “He was fairly willing, as I recall. I was Blackbeard, Victor was always Redbeard. After his family moved away so suddenly, I was miserable, so Daddy got me a dog. A red setter. He was Redbeard too, named for Victor. We’d moved to the cottage by then. Redbeard the dog was an excellent boyhood companion, until he developed a tumour. The cancer spread and he had to be put down.” Sherlock turned away from the drive and rubbed his thumb gently across John’s cheek. “I vowed at the time not to have a friend again ever, if all they were going to do was leave me. Fortunately, I met someone else who wanted to have adventures with me, and he’s still here, so there’s an improvement.”

John turned his face to kiss Sherlock’s wrist. Lifted his chin so they could press their lips together.

“What did I tell you?” said Harry, pushing Mycroft past them in his wheelchair. “Soppy bastards.”

John stopped kissing Sherlock to flip her the finger. Rosie in his arms bounced happily and tugged on his ear.

“Let’s get you inside, hey? Nanna and Poppy want to see you.”

He left Sherlock to fetch the bag from the motor home parked on the lawn.

*

Giles waited with infinite patience for Sherlock to speak. It was rare enough that Sherlock had joined him on his evening constitutional, and perfectly obvious that he was pensive about some topic he intended to bring up, but Sherlock never had been much good at talking about things that troubled him.

Giles hoped he would, though. This weekend was proving even more fraught than he’d feared it would be. He and Leandra still felt the prickling dread of Eurus’s loss. Added to that was Mycroft’s resentful discomfort of adjusting to the latest of his prosthetics, which chafed and never seemed to sit right, so that he spent most of his time in his chair, seething. Thank God for Harry Watson, who never seemed bothered by Mycroft’s worst moods. But John and Sherlock, while affectionate with each other and doting parents to Rosie, seemed still unsettled. Well. Naturally. Grief was not a thing to be absorbed and managed on an arbitrary, convenient time scale of months. Their sorrow at Mary’s loss would be raw for months, or years, and not consistently. Some days might be better than others, some decades even, and then out of the blue, they’d think, oh, it would have been her birthday today, or, she should have been alive to see Rosie crawl, and then there’d be tears again, like she was only just taken from them again.

“It’s about John,” said Sherlock suddenly.

Giles nodded. “Yes,” he said.

“He’s worried that I’m. Bothered. By.” Sherlock fell silent. They paced a while down the drive, past the oak. “The fact that we haven’t. Hmm.”

A rabbit scampered across their paths in the dusk.

“Had sex. Since. Well. Since.”

Giles wondered if Sherlock was blushing there in the falling light. He was staring at his own feet and scowling rather fiercely.

 “Are you?” asked Giles. “Bothered?”

Beyond the oak, the drive led down to the gate and the flanking elms. They paused when they reached them.

“No,” said Sherlock. “I’m not much in the mood myself. Little Watson. That is, Rosie. Her crib is in our room. He can’t sleep if she’s not where he can see her when he wakes up. If he can get to sleep at all.”

“And you?”

“Much the same as John,” his son confessed quietly.

“Your mother and I were like that when you were born. We could barely let you out of our sight. Mycroft, too. More than once we woke to find him sitting on a chair by your crib, just watching you. Poor mite.”

Sherlock jammed his hands in his pockets and looked to the treetops.

“John. John seems to feel.” He looked at his feet. “We. He. That is. At night. We.”

Giles thought he might help a bit. “Cuddle? Or don’t you? Is that part of the problem?”

“No. We. We cuddle. We. We’re both better when we are near each other. We hold hands. Kiss. Well. You’ve seen.”

“Yes.”

“And sometimes he… makes. Overtures.”

“I see.”

“And then he changes his mind.”

“Ah.”

“I don’t mind that he does.”

“All right.”

“It was never about the sex when it began, with us and Mary. Why would it be about the sex now? I can live without sex. I lived without it for a long time. Never missed it then. It’s not. Even if we never. I. It’s. I love John. We both love Mary. Loved Mary. I have always loved John.”

“He loves you too.”

“I know that.”

“It’s all right if you miss it, though.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t make you a bad person, Sherlock, if you would like the comfort of sex with John. It doesn’t mean you loved Mary less, or that you’re somehow over her before he is. Grief is not a competition. After Eurus. Well. Well.” Giles cleared his throat. “Your mother and I. I was. Not much in the mood, as you say. But your mother wanted so much to be held. To find comfort in. Intimacy. But we talked, and we realised that intimacy can mean many things. So the. The cuddling and the holding hands and kissing are good. You both need that. Perhaps you can do other things too. Even with a little one around, you can… hug more. Cuddle more. I used to brush your mother’s hair for her. I told her how much I loved her. It was good for us both, Sherlock. Nobody was in the wrong. How we lived through our grief for your sister was different, but not better or worse, or more or less meaningful. Just different. We talked and we tried to always be there for each other, and eventually we were back on the same wavelength.”

Sherlock nodded slowly. “I. I. Feel.”

Giles wrapped his arms around Sherlock; pulled him into a long, gentle hug. “You can’t will the pain away. You can only be kind, to each other, to yourself. Perhaps he sometimes feels he’d like to, but then feels guilty that he does. Perhaps he’s trying to provide what he thinks you need, but can’t. Whatever you’ve told him, tell him again.”

Sherlock rested his head on his father’s shoulder and hugged him back. “I really, truly don’t mind,” he said. “I just don’t want him to feel that he ought, or that I don’t. Feel what I feel.”

“I know, son.”

“I miss her.”

“I know.”

“I love him.”

“I know you do.”

“Whatever he needs…”

“Whatever you both need, Sherlock. Talk with him. You’ll find the balance.”

Giles held his son for as long as Sherlock wanted to be held, which turned out to be for a surprisingly long time.

Poor boy. Poor man. Men. Grief was a cruel thing.

Sherlock straightened again at last. He started back towards the house, Giles at his side. Sherlock’s shoulders were less tense, his stride less terse. Giles was glad.

“Harry has taken Mycroft’s prosthetic to her room,” said Sherlock suddenly, “With four tins of paint.”

Giles grinned in the dark. “Oh yes. She’s decided to paint a Union Flag on it to see if it will make him laugh.”

“Can’t wait for breakfast,” said Sherlock, before saying goodnight and joining John who was putting Rosie to bed in the caravan.

*

Mycroft stared at the painted prosthetic sitting across his plate at the table.

“You’re a pest, Harry Watson,” he said dourly.

“I don’t know,” said Leandra, dishing up bacon and fried eggs, “I think it looks rather dashing.”

“And I checked the instructions and redid the foam, you grumpy bastard, so let’s try it again. Your dad’s found a cane for you too.”

“From when your mother twisted her ankle chasing after that fox with a slingshot,” said Giles cheerfully.

“That blasted fox,” groused Leandra.

“You got him in the end though, Duck.”

“Yes. I did, Bunny,” she responded with a satisfied smirk.

Breakfast served, Harry decided to ignore the way Mycroft was inspecting her artwork by scouring the local newspaper that had been delivered that morning.

“Ha. Look here,” she said, “The Musgrave sale’s in the paper. Acreage, amenities, blah blah. And… oh, fuck those guys.” She tried to fold the paper and remove it from view, but Mycroft leaned across the table and snatched it out of her hands.

“Tragic history,” he read, scowling. “They’ve interviewed the neighbours.”

“The Garridebs?” asked Leandra, also scowling. The family resemblance was unmistakable, just now. “They wouldn’t.”

“Not Nathan or Howard,” said Mycroft, throwing the paper down in disgust. “Another one. John Garrideb.”

“Ah. The cousin.” Giles nodded.

“He didn’t even live nearby at the time. Yet he dares to speak to the press about us.”

“I’d hardly call the local rag ‘the press’ Mummy,” said Sherlock. His fingers rested on Rosie’s right foot while she took her bottle in John’s lap. He and John leaned close against each other, a little easier together perhaps even than yesterday.

Mycroft snatched up the paper to peer at the article again. “For someone who wasn’t here he claims enough knowledge. ‘Eurus Holmes wanted to see the stars’ he says. As if he’d known. And oh, look. ‘She always sang an odd rhyme about trees. It still haunts me.’ The presumptuous little…”

Harry plucked the paper of his hands. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Fuck it. Damn. Sorry Rosie. John. Oh to hell with this.”

Harry stomped out of the room. Mycroft watched her go, but he wasn’t thinking of Harry and her upset and being the source of this upset.

He was thinking about John Garrideb, stars and a rhyme about trees.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Mycroft was a boy, in all the world, he only loved Mummy and Daddy and Eurus, and he loved Eurus best of all. But then she didn't listen and a terrible thing happened.  
> But right here and now, a baby who wasn't even born yet when Eurus died is a grown man, seeking advice from his mother, because he understands what losing Eurus meant, now.  
> Sometimes it's terrifying to grow up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Child Death.  
> This chapter describes Eurus's death when she and Mycroft were children. Some aspects of this might be distressing to some readers, so if you want to skip it, it's covered in the last flashback, which is in italics.

_The awful boys and awful girls at that stupid school are cruel about him being fat and for knowing big words and for not enjoying sport. He hates all of them and their stupid goldfish faces, mouths opening and shutting and opening and shutting and nothing coming out but breath farts. He wishes Mummy and Daddy would let him stay at home and learn. He and Eurus could just read through Mummy and Daddy’s library together. Eurus loves his big words and how he shares everything he learns with her, and she teaches him things too, because she reads even faster than he does._

_In all the world, he only loves Mummy and Daddy and Eurus, and he loves Eurus best of all._

_He’s sitting behind the oak tree, pretending not to be hurt that they called him fat, like it meant wrong or bad (it’s just an adjective, he tried to say, it’s only one thing about me, and not even an important thing, why does it matter? But all he knows is that it does)._

_He’s not pretending very well. He’s crying by the oak tree, hiding from Mummy and Daddy because he hates when his being different makes them sad too._

_“Mikie!” Eurus calls when she sees him, and she runs to him, furiously fast, like their lives depend on it._

_Part of Mycroft wants to tell her to go away so he can cry and not be ashamed of someone seeing and making fun again._

_“Mikie!” Eurus calls again, arms open wide, and if he doesn’t catch her she’ll crash into him or the tree and bang her nose. He hates it when Eurus hurts herself because she flings herself at the world too hard. That must be what Mummy and Daddy feel like, when they see him hurt too._

_Mycroft goes to his knees and holds out his arms, and his little East Wind flies into them, her arms tight around his neck._

_“I kicked Howie Garrideb for being mean,” she says fiercely._

_Howie Garrideb is ten years older than Eurus, eight years older than Mycroft, and the worst bully in the school. Before Mycroft can express his concern, Eurus has sat her little bottom down on his leg and stretched out her legs to show him._

_“I kicked him in the patella,” she says, pointing to her own grubby knee, “And then the tibia, and then I kicked him in the talus,” she taps her shin and then ankle, above her bright green trainers._

_Mycroft knows that Eurus shouldn’t be kicking teenaged bullies on his behalf, but he can’t help but love her for it._

_Eurus kneels in his lap to hug him tighter still and says in his ear, “You’re made of hugs.”_

_He wraps his arms around his little sister and hugs her so hard. He can’t get rid of that feeling of shame for being fat, but he also feels warm right in his middle that she likes how he’s made._

_Eurus settles in his lap and starts to sing their song._

The sister runs swiftly past willow and beech  
Ten by ten, and under she goes  
Her brother’s mouth swallows the stream in the field  
Go under! the East Wind blows

_The chubby folds of Mycroft’s cheeks are all pink with his happiness. He was once the loneliest boy in the world, but then Mummy and Daddy gave him a sister. He thought he would hate her, but he loves her, loves her, loves her. She’s ten times smarter than him, even though she’s two years younger, and instead of being jealous, he’s just captivated. She’s a sparkling little light. She’s Tinkerbell. She’s the best of best things, and the very best of all is that she loves him too._

The elm trees are guarding the castle and moat  
Double back, and under we go  
The wind learns the secrets that are told to the oak  
The field keeps them safe, and under we go!

_*_

Leandra found Sherlock by the old well, when she went looking for him after breakfast. It was boarded up again now, just as it should have been on the day Eurus died. Leandra battled an unreasonable fear to see Sherlock standing so close to it. Ridiculous. He was a grown man and hardly likely to fall down a clearly marked, safely shut up well.

“Why wasn’t the well covered?” Sherlock asked.

Leandra, arms folded, stared at the crumbling stones. “It was. It had been. We assume some local children had been playing. Perhaps the Garridebs. Howard and Nathan were a little older than Mycroft. The family said they’d been in the village all day, and they swore they never did. The police concluded she’d moved the planks herself.”

“Nathan and Howard Garrideb. Who’s this John Garrideb the paper mentioned?”

“An American cousin of theirs. He came to live with them a few years later.  The boy’s father had some trouble with the law, I understand.”

“Hmm.” He went right up to the edge of the well, running his fingers over the stones and testing the wooden cover. The edge of the wood was brittle and a layer flaked off the top.

“Do come away from the well, Sherlock.”

Sherlock looked at her in some surprise, but let the cover alone and wiped his hands. He went to her side. Leandra took a calming breath and exhaled.

He put an arm around her shoulders. He took her hand in his, squeezed it. He continued to stare at the well.

“Penny for your thoughts?” she asked.

“I suppose I finally understand about Rachel, now.”

That was no clearer, but then he went on.

“I think,” he said, “I’ve been unkind. I never knew Eurus. I didn’t understand what losing her meant to you. I apologise for all the frights I gave you over the years. I argued with Mycroft about telling you what I planned at the hospital. I realise now he was right. It would have been unforgiveable to let you think I had jumped. It.” He scuffed his feet on the grass. “It was unforgiveable that it happened to John. Even if it had been for only the short time I’d planned. Though I’m not impressed that Mycroft didn’t think of that, when he refused to pass on my message.”

“It wasn’t his wisest decision,” Leandra said. “But you were his priority.”

Sherlock stared at the well in which his sister had drowned and then spoke again.

“Is Rosie a… typical baby, do you think? Well. I know I tell everyone she’s remarkable, and I do think so. I expect I’m biased. But. She’s happy enough most of the time, but she won’t eat unless she’s held or we’re very close. We. We. Don't sleep well, but nor does she, if she's away. From us. Her cot is in our room. Now that we’ve built a door at the top of the stairs, to encase the whole upper part of Baker Street as one abode, she’s safer. We turned John’s old room into a nursery, but we still can’t bear to move her to there. Is that. Normal? Are we. Harming her?”

“How could giving her the comfort and care she needs possibly be harming her?”

“I’ve been reading…”

“Well don’t.”

“I never expected to be a parent. I haven’t paid any attention to the practice, let alone the theory. I have to start somewhere.”

“Bother the theory, Sherlock. The books can only tell you so much. The rest is between parent and child. You and John both lost a woman you loved very much. Rosie lost her mother. She may not be old enough to talk about it, but she knows. Babies can’t articulate, but they feel. Forget the books and the mumsy blogs or whatever they’re called. Rosie needs to feel safe and loved, and you both need that too. You just do what you feel is right, as long as Rosie is thriving. When she needs something different, you’ll know.”

“I don’t know that I will.”

“Then ask me again in six months and I’ll tell you what I think. For now, I think you’re both excellent parents. Of course she’s upset. She misses her mother, and she knows her fathers are sad.”

“So there’s no harm in having her sleep in our room.”

“I think there’s harm in sending her somewhere else. It would upset you and John, and that would upset Rosie. You all just do what you need to do. All right?”

“All right.” And he did seem to relax, just as he had been more relaxed after speaking with his father last night.

“Mummy,” said her boy. His tone was full of rarely heard trepidation.

“Yes, Sherlock?”

He chewed his lip. “Would you mind. If. I understand that this is. Not precisely. Good.” He put his hands in his pockets.

“You want me to tell you what happened that day,” Leandra said. Her voice was flat. Not angry, but not calm.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because something about that article this morning is troubling Mycroft, more than the sheer intrusiveness of the thing, and he doesn’t seem to know what it is. I thought I’d. See if I could find out.”

Leandra had been thinking about that damned article all morning. She shared Mycroft’s anger at the presumptuousness of it. The death of her daughter was not a fit subject for prurient curiosity now they were finally selling the property.  Yet Sherlock was correct. Mycroft was unsettled beyond mere offence at the thing, but he had too many troubles of his own to concentrate.

“Your father and I were working in the greenhouse,” she said finally. “Mycroft was playing with Eurus in the house. We had no reason to believe they wouldn’t be safe. They were _inside_. We reconstructed events as best we could, once Mycroft could speak again.”

*

_Eurus is humming the song she made for them as she draws in her art book._

The sister runs swiftly past willow and beech  
Ten by ten, and under she goes  
Her brother’s mouth swallows the stream in the field  
Go under! the East Wind blows

_She stops and cocks her head at the picture of a boy and a girl holding hands under a tree. They’re not the 2 dimensional shapes that other five year olds draw. She shows perspective and depth. Mycroft is recognisable not only by his plumpness, but by his nose and chin, his hair and clothes. The figure of Eurus next to him has swirls instead of feet, because she is the east wind who runs between the willow and the beech._

_Mycroft is completing his homework. Not the dull homework completed in ten minutes two hours ago. He’s set himself a more challenging task, to draw the map of Europe from memory, including all the major cities._

_“Mikie,” she says, “Will you still be my best friend after the baby comes?” Mummy has only just found out she is going to give them a baby brother or sister, and Eurus isn’t sure how she feels about it._

_“Of course,” he says._

_“What if you like the baby better than me?”_

_“What would I do with a baby? They just roll around making messes for ages. You made messes for ages. You did a poo on Uncle Rudy once.”_

_“Did not.”_

_“Did too. Ruined his best dress, he said. But you got bigger and more fun.”_

_“What about if the baby gets bigger and more fun?”_

_“Then we’ll both play with it, unless it’s boring, and then we won’t.”_

_Eurus abandons her drawing to flop backwards over Mycroft’s lap to stare into his face with her big blue eyes. “Myyyyycroooooooft.”_

_“Euuuuuuruuuuuuus.”_

_She giggles. “Myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyycroooooooooooooooooooft.”_

_He tweaks her nose. “Wha-aaaaat?”_

_“Can we do the stars now? You said you’d teach me about the stars.”_

_“I can’t now.”_

_“Puuuhleeeeeeeeeease???”_

_“It’s not my fault. You can’t see the stars in the daytime. Well, you can, if you’re down something deep like a mine shaft to block out all the light. Then you can look up to the stars in the daylight."_

_But I want to learn the stars! The con-stell-ations. From your book!”_

_“We can look at the book,” he tells her, because he hates to tell her no, “And then tonight I’ll get my telescope and Mummy will take us into the meadow.”_

_“Daddy too! He can bring the hot chocolate!”_

_They shake hands on it and then Eurus jumps up. “Get the book Mikie! I’ll go find a place in the meadow for tonight.”_

_“Don’t go outside without me. I won’t be a minute.”_

_“But we have to find the best part of the meadow to see the sky!”_

_“I know the best place already. You wait till I get back and I’ll show you. All right?”_

_“Oookaaaay,” agrees Eurus resentfully._

_“Say you’ll wait or I won’t show you the book.”_

_“I’ll wait.” She’s sulky about it though._

_“If you don’t do as you're told,” says Mycroft, putting on his mother’s voice, “I won’t show you the stars and I’ll wait as long as I have to and I’ll show the baby instead of you.”_

_“Don’t you dare!”_

_Mycroft holds his breath because no, he wouldn’t dare. The baby that’s not even going to be here for another eight months yet is going to be a roly poly poo machine, just like Eurus was to start with. It’ll be years before it’s anything like as much fun as Eurus, and it’ll probably be awful, like those other awful kids. Only Eurus has ever been wonderful._

_“Okay,” he says, “I promise I won’t show the baby. But you have to promise to wait for me. You know Mummy and Daddy say you can’t go wandering off without me. Promise me, Eurus!”_

_Eurus promises. She kneels on the sofa, facing the window, looking out at the front lawn, at the driveway past the oak leading to the elms by the gates._

_It’s the last time he sees the Eurus he loves, kneeling there, looking at the meadow to the west which goes to their neighbour’s property line, and the old well they’re not allowed near. It’s covered up, but last year a boy fell in and broke his arm and it took six men and a truck to get him out._

_Mycroft runs upstairs to get his astronomy book. He’s about to come down when he stops to get his observation logs and the star chart he made himself. Eurus will have it memorised before the evening and she’ll find all the stars he shows her now, if it’s not cloudy. Then he stops to get a new exercise book, and in his neatest handwriting he labels it. **Eurus Holmes’s Observational Log**._

_He runs back down the stairs, surprisingly fast for a boy who doesn’t run much, excited to introduce his sister to the mysterious science of the skies._

_She isn’t there._

_He calls for her, thinking she’s hiding._

_She doesn’t come out._

_Mycroft sees the door is ajar and he’s annoyed now. He told her to wait._

_He calls for her. He calls. He calls. She doesn’t answer._

_He’s so cross. She’s supposed to be smart. Smarter than him. She knows she’s not supposed to run off on her own. No matter how smart she is, she’s only five. He’s seven and he’s old enough to look after her._

_Mummy and Daddy are still in the greenhouse, doing thing with roses and potting mix and orchids. He runs out to them, in case Eurus got bored waiting and went to help._

_She didn't._

_The alarm goes up, and Mummy and Daddy stride off to find Eurus. Mycroft goes with them._

_Mycroft’s the one who sees the cover of the well has been moved._

_He remembers that he told her that they could see the stars in the daylight, if they were down a mine shaft._

_Eurus is smart. She wouldn’t have. She wouldn’t have._

_She wouldn’t have._

_But his chubby hands are clutched in the moss at the edge of the well, because she has. He can see the marks where she stood on the edge. He can see the scuff where she fell and her heels kicked. Leaning with his belly pressed to the stone, face over the great hole that falls down to the deep, damp dark, he can see the faintest pale oval revealed by the thinnest shaft of light._

_“Eurus!!” he shouts at her. He doesn’t hear the panic in his voice, but his parents come running. Running so fast. So fast._

_“Eurus!!” he shrieks, because she hasn’t answered him. “Eurus!!!”_

_Mummy wails like something is broken in her chest. Daddy makes sounds like he is suffocating underground. Mycroft doesn’t make any sound at all. He mustn’t. He mustn’t. He mustn’t._

_This is his fault._

_Eurus has only been gone half an hour._

_Eurus will be gone forever._

_It takes Mummy and Daddy and the neighbours an hour to get Eurus out of the well._

_Mycroft wasn’t supposed to see. Daddy took him inside. He snuck out again to watch, because how can he be sure what has happened to Eurus if he doesn’t see for himself?_

_She’s so small. So small. Clothes wet, hair wet, leg bent wrong where it broke, fingers scraped and filthy where she tried to climb the slimy wall, skin so white and stiff, like wax._

_Mycroft doesn’t know where his sister is. This thing they took out of the well is not his sister. Eurus has a fire inside her, and this broken doll is just wax and meat and string for hair._

_Daddy comes to take him back inside. Daddy asks him if he’s all right. Daddy says 'I love you, Mycroft. We love you. This isn't your fault."  
_

_Mycroft doesn’t speak._

It is, it is, it is my fault.

_He doesn’t speak for weeks._

_He sneaks outside at night becasue by day Mummy and Daddy won't let him out of their sight. He buries messages in their secret place at the oak tree._

The sister runs swiftly past willow and beech  
Ten by ten, and under she goes  
Her brother’s mouth swallows the stream in the field  
Go under! the East Wind blows

_She wrote that song for them, their secret song. But she doesn’t collect the messages he leaves for her, measured in steps past the beech, then back from the gate. Ten by ten and under they go._

The elm trees are guarding the castle and moat  
Double back, and under we go  
The wind learns the secrets that are told to the oak  
The field keeps them safe, and under we go!

_Eurus always answered his messages, leaving pictures and notes for him in the tin under the roots of the oak. Just as he always answered hers. Their secret correspondance.  
_

_She doesn't reply, and that means she's really gone._

_And Mycroft is furious._

_He is so angry with her for running away. For turning herself into a broken doll by not listening and running away and climbing into the well like any other stupid child could have done. She was supposed to be smart. She was supposed to be his friend. She was supposed to be **here.**_

_Mycroft is so angry he writes in his journal that Eurus did not have an accident. She did this to herself, and if she is going to be so stupid then he was not going to be sorry. He didn’t want Eurus if she was stupid and mean and left him, like everybody else._

_He’s ashamed of what he writes, though, and throws his journal in the fire._

_Then he burns himself, snatching it out of the flames again, because Eurus is gone but Mummy is having another baby. It will be roly poly and all smells and wet messes for a while, but then it’ll be older. They’ll be friends.  His diary will remind him of what he did wrong. He won’t make that mistake again._

_Mycroft will make sure this baby listens to him. He'll make sure this baby doesn't think its too smart to pay attention to what its told to keep it safe._

_He’ll make sure the baby grows up just smart enough, and more than safe enough, and doesn’t run away when its told not to._

_Mycroft will make sure._

_He'll get it right this time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Eurus's song, the East Wind is a reference to herself, and the "brother’s mouth swallows the stream in the field" is a reference to Mycroft's name, which is derived from Old English: mýðe meaning "the mouth of a stream" and croft, an enclosed field.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John gather gossip. Harry and Leandra talk in the glasshouse.

Sherlock missed the days when he could simply throw on a coat and stride out into the world, to do whatever he needed to do.

But perhaps he didn’t miss it as much as he thought he did, because after speaking to his mother by the old well, he’d taken five purposeful steps towards the gate, remembered he should tell John he’d be gone for a while, thought that John could do with a walk and decided Little Watson could use the fresh input for her data-hungry brain, and was back at the motor home before he knew it.

John was inside, changing Rosie. She lay on a mat on the narrow but sufficient double bed at the rear of the vehicle. She was cackle-giggling, kicking her bare legs in the air, while John tickled her tummy with a soft crocheted bunny.

“Aaaaah-boo! Aaaaaah-boo!”

Sherlock watched John from the doorway. The smile. The softness in his eyes. The way leaned towards his daughter with his whole body, every line a curve of love. 

Sherlock had loved John Watson for a long time. He’d never known how much he would love watching John Watson being full of love for someone else. Well, he’d adored watching John and Mary together, but then, they’d all loved loving each other like that. Rosie was different, obviously, but also not.

“I thought I’d take a walk to the village,” Sherlock said after the fourth boo-tickle. “Watson might enjoy the view, and I’d enjoy your company.”

John turned, and Sherlock felt that inevitable yet still so surprising click of seeing that John looked at him with essentially the same smile, the same softness, that he gave to Rosie.

“Just a minute, then.”

It was never ‘just a minute’ getting Rosie ready for an outing, but Sherlock put together the travel bag and made sure it had a baby blanket, change of clothes and nappies for emergencies, formula, toys, baby wipes and whatnot while John dressed Rosie in a red and white polka dot bloomers and a red spotty shirt with a toucan on the front. He put a soft cotton hat on her head and told her she was a little wonder.

Rosie hitched on his hip at last, John slid an arm around Sherlock’s waist and kissed his cheek. “I’ve been thinking about what we talked about the other night.”

The fruits of Sherlock’s conversation with his father. Since then, John had more often kissed his cheek, hugged him, held his hand. John would touch his hand, arm, knee, at every opportunity. He made a thoughtful effort to physically connect. “Hmm?”

“I’m glad you brought it up. I’ve been feeling… better. I like… this.”

Sherlock kissed him, a little peck on the mouth, and hugged John with the arm across his back. “Hugging is known to be medically and psychologically beneficial. Little Watson agrees. Don’t you Watson?”

He kissed her forehead. Rosie bumped her wet open mouth against his cheek and gummed slightly at his chin.

Sherlock unfolded her pushechair outside; John settled her.

“Lovely day for a walk!” Giles called out, spotting them, “And she’s got Ducky!”

Rosie was waving her crocheted duckling around in her hand.

“Bunny’s in the pushchair with her,” John said. Giles beamed. Sherlock waved at his father and they were on their way.

“So what’s up?” asked John as they passed through the gate and walked towards the village centre in the sunshine.

“We’re going for a walk,” Sherlock deadpanned. “Watson, see? That’s a Red Poll cow. They are very placid cows. There are one, two, three, four, five cows in this part of the meadow.”

Rosie made a happy noise and waved Ducky in her fist. The toy fell out of the pushchair. Sherlock picked it up, dusted it off and gave it back to Rosie.

“The cow counting is fantastic, but you can do better," said John. "That article this morning set you off. You’ve had a thinking face on ever since.”

“I would like to think my face always indicates I’m thinking.”

“Sometimes it indicates you’re blissing out on getting your,” glance to Rosie, and he mouthed _cock sucked_. Then he grinned.

Sherlock found himself blushing.

“I’ve been thinking about that too, today,” added John quietly but warmly. “You’re right. I don’t have to feel guilty. We’re not cheating on her.”

“Not given the number of times she urged you to,” Sherlock glanced at Rosie, then mouthed _suck my cock_. “And of course the other way around.”

Then they both started to laugh. John reached for Sherlock’s hand and they continued walking. “But that’s getting away from the point. You’ve been hyper alert since that article this morning. On-a-case alert. Everyone’s been on edge since then. Spill.”

“Something’s off about it.  I talked the events of Eurus’s death over with Mummy this morning…”

“Jesus, Sherlock.”

“I think she was glad to tell me, really. It’s not something we discuss as a family. I knew I had a sister, I knew she died in a terrible accident. Mycroft spoke of her sometimes, but was as likely to use her name as a dire warning as with any sorrow or affection. Something of a boogie man, really, about the dreadful things that would happen if I didn’t behave correctly. He invoked it often, but the East Wind never came for me. Well.” Sherlock squeezed John’s hand and studied the road. “Not until much later in my life.”

They had to stop to retrieve Bunny this time, which Rosie had thrown from the pushchair and then cried for.

“Watson,” said Sherlock seriously, peering at her over the top of the pushchair, “You’re really going to have to learn the concept of consequences eventually. We won’t always pick your toys up for you.”

“Yes we will,” John said.

“Yes,” Sherlock conceded, “We will. All the criminal masterminds we’ve defeated, and we’re at the whim of a six month old child with no teeth and a terrible sense of humour.”

“She’s just playing. Aren’t you, sweetheart? Playing fetch with Daddy and Papa?”

Rosie yelled happily and threw Ducky onto the path. Sherlock picked it up that time.

“We’re doomed,” he said, but he sounded pleased about it.

“Completely. So. What did you learn from your mum?”

“John Garrideb, who was interviewed about the sale of Musgrave, lives at the property next to us with his cousins, Howie and Nathan. At the time of Eurus’s death, Howie was 15, Nathan 18, and their father Alexander in his forties. John Garrideb would have been about ten at the time of Eurus’s death, but he lived in America then.  He came to live with the family a few years later, after his father went to prison on forgery charges.  Alexander died three years ago, and  John, Howie and Nathan continue to run the property as a cattle farm and agistment.”

“Hang on,” said John, “The cousin didn’t move to the neighbourhood until after your sister died. But wasn’t he quoted on what she was like in the article?”

“Precisely the point that caused Mycroft such agitation. My brother’s not at his best just now. He should be more agitated that Garrideb knew those things about her at all.”

“What were they again?”

“The puzzle song she wrote. I found it once, as a child – she’d written it out in an exercise book I found in Mycroft’s room…”

“You were snooping.”

“Of course I was snooping. I was six years old and he was secretive. A terrific challenge. The ritual of it wasn’t too hard to work out, once I saw she referred to herself as the East Wind, and therefore the references to the river and the field were Mycroft – his name derives from the Old English for those two words. It was a game, I suppose. It gave the directions to the place where they left messages to each other at the oak tree.”

“Right. But maybe Mycroft, I don’t know, quoted it still after she died?”

“John, he barely managed to say her name during our childhood. I certainly never heard him recite the ritual, and we never left coded messages to each other. Victor and I did for a while, but our method was very different.”

“Ah.” John fetched the Bunny for Rosie again. “Things like Vatican Cameos?”

“Not quite so dramatic, but we had phrases, and we left notes using stick figures drawn on brown paper. It was quite sophisticated for five year olds.”

“You were fucking adorable, from what I can see in the photos.”

“Language, John. Watson’s listening.”

Rosie was making happy noises again. Sherlock pointed out some more cows and counted them for her. A cow mooed and Rosie squealed in delight and got the hiccups, which also made her laugh.

“The fact he knew about her wanting to learn astronomy is odd. Mummy says Eurus had only recently become excited by the idea. Astonishingly, Mycroft had planned to teach her the constellations.”

“Astonishingly?”

“He always told me they were a waste of time. I explained navigation by the North Star was useful. He bought me a compass.”

John peeped over the top of the pushchair. “Look, Rosie! There’s a baker, and a butcher…”

“And a pub, but I think the café is best for today’s purposes.”

“Which are?”

“To find out a little more about the Garridebs. John Garrideb may have learned these things about Eurus from his cousins, but it’s hard to imagine those two paying that much attention to a child, at their age.”

At the café, they manoeuvred inside to take a seat at the busiest section. John took Rosie into his lap and took out her bottle. Sherlock ordered coffee and waved at their baby from the counter before striking up a conversation with the waitress, a woman waiting to pay, and sundry patrons. Irritating as it could sometimes be, to be the subject of people who thought two men were hapless in charge of an infant, it was invariably a good way to strike up conversation and gather gossip.

*

Leandra found Harry in the old greenhouse, staring glumly at bags of blood and bone. Gaps in the framework, covered in clear plastic, indicated where glass panels had broken over the years. Inside, it still smelled of mulch and plant decay, though the last few months of tidying had cleaned up the benches and rows of cuttings very well.

Harry, her arms crossed, had an unlit cigarette in her hand.

“Harry? There’s no need to skulk out here. Come inside for tea.”

“I’m not skulking,” Harry said.

“I raised Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes," said Leandra crisply. "I know skulking when I see it. Also sulking, brooding, snitting and fuming. I could be a consulting expert on moodiness. Come inside for tea and you can quiz me.”

Despite herself, Harry smiled. “I’ll just bet you are. How’s Mycroft then? Snitting, brooding or fuming?”

“None of the above, as far as I know. He’s gone for a walk on the new prosthetic with his father and a walking stick.”

Harry sighed. “I didn’t mean to upset him this morning. Or you.  I don’t think. Just…” With her hands and fingers she mimed a word vomit. “You’d think I’d fucking learn. Can’t even do this shit right sober.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Harry.”

“Should have read the bloody thing to myself before saying anything. Fucking idiot. I’m always such a thoughtless fucking idiot.”

“You are not,” snapped Leandra, “And I would appreciate it if you would not speak ill of yourself.”

Harry blinked at her. “I'm... sorry?” she ventured.

Leandra stood beside Harry, shoulder to shoulder, and together they looked at the potting mixes and tubs of rose cuttings.

“I stood in here while my daughter drowned, and didn’t know I was losing her,” Leandra said. “I hated this place for years after. I should have known, I thought. I should have felt her in my blood, calling for me. I was her mother. When your child is drowning, surely you should know.”

“Leandra, don’t…”

“Oh, I’m all right. I don’t blame myself any more. But it’s so destructive, to hate yourself for things you didn’t do. It’s destructive even if you did them, to yourself, to the people who love you. So you read out an article not knowing the consequences. Perhaps next time you might be less impulsive. But your impulsiveness is part of why we care for you, you know. We all have moments when we wish we’d been more thoughtful or said something different.  We all have moments when, without even knowing how, we’ve said or done just the right thing. It’s all right. Be kinder to yourself.”

Harry considered her cigarette, but instead of lighting it, tucked it behind her ear.

“Mary used to say things like that to me.”

“Yes. She had a good heart.”

“I miss her. I liked having a sister. And now I don’t have one anymore.”

“She’s still your sister,” said Leandra softly. At Harry’s frown, she continued. “Eurus is my daughter. I am her mother. She’s dead, but she’s still with me. We still belong to each other, Eurus and I. Mary is gone, but she’s still your sister, just as much as John is your brother, if you want her to be.”

Harry folded her arms again. “I do. I just. Miss her.  She was kind. She. John loves me. I know that. It’s good we’re friends again. And Rosie’s gorgeous. I adore her. But babies love everybody, yeah? But. I liked Mary so much. I think I loved her as a sister. She. Maybe. I don’t know. Loved me even though she didn’t have to.”

“You’re loved, Harry. And not because anybody has to.”

“I want to think that’s true.”

“Mycroft doesn’t know how to say it, but he adores you.”

Harry snorted a rude laugh, but her eyelashes were clumping with tears.

“I think he’s as good for you as you are for him,” said Leandra matter-of-factly.

“I guess.” She took the cigarette from behind her ear again, and dug out a lighter, though she didn’t light it. “He is. Yeah. I like his company. He makes me laugh.”

“Well there you go. And it’s not only Mycroft. We love you, too. Giles and me.”

Harry played with the unlit cigarette, turning it over and over in her fingers. “I. You’re kind. You’re good to me. I don’t deserve…”

“Since when has love had anything to do with what we deserve? I should hope we all are loved beyond what we think we deserve. People are much harsher critics of themselves than any stranger could ever be. I think you deserve our love, Harry. You’re thoughtful and kind. Helpful and practical. It’s been wonderful having you around the house, and helping here. You make us laugh, and that’s never a gift to be taken lightly.  You have become a very dear friend to us, Harry, and we shall love you whether you think you deserve it or not.”

Harry fumbled with the cigarette a little longer, until it was a shredded mess, and then, suddenly, turned and flung her arms around Leandra, who hugged her back.

“I love you, too,” Harry mumbled into Leandra’s shoulder, sniffing.

“Good girl,” said Leandra, patting Harry’s back, rocking her slightly in her arms. “Let’s have tea. You can help me bake shortbread. You’re family now.”

Harry withdrew, grinning, laughing at herself and her soggy eyes as she drew her sleeve across them. Leandra gave her a tissue and she blew her nose.

“Shortbread, huh?” said Harry, “I’ll try not to burn this batch.”

“We shall overcome,” declared Leandra confidently, “But Bunny will be on standby with the fire extinguisher, just in case.”

*

“You’re asking about me?”

John continued to make sure Rosie was nestled safely in the pushchair’s safety straps. His acute awareness of the man who spoke with a slight American accent wasn’t obvious, but he already knew how far away he stood, that he was slightly rather than solidly built, that his moving feet indicated nervousness, and that Sherlock was standing upright, between Rosie and the man confronting them outside the café.

“And you are?” asked Sherlock imperiously, though John knew that Sherlock already knew who he was. Sherlock had pointed Garrideb out to him not fifteen minutes before.

“John Garrideb. I heard you were asking about me.”

“Oh, just idle wondering,” said Sherlock breezily, “I saw your name in the Real Estate section this morning, talking about Musgrave Hall.”

“And what’s Musgrave to you?”

“It’s my parents’ old home.”

“Oh.” Garrideb seemed to relax as John stood straight. “Are you Mycroft Holmes then?”

John snorted a bit. Sherlock winced. “No. I’m…”

“The other one.” Garrideb became tense again, then fidgety. “Oh. And you’re…?” He glanced at John and flinched slightly. "Dr Watson, then." He looked at Rosie. “You’ve got a baby.” When they made no answer, he looked at Sherlock again. “Why are you asking about me?”

“Why were you talking to the local paper about my sister?”

Another tiny flinch. “Someone called and asked some questions. About what happened back then. About.” He looked down, then up. “What she was like. Human interest, they said.”

“So you said what she was like. My sister.”

“I didn’t know your sister. I moved here after that happened. After your family left the area.”

“But you knew what she was like.”

“I… No. No, Howie told me about her.”

“What would Howie know about her? They weren’t playmates. Unless they were.”

“Yes, that’s it. He remembers playing with her.”

“Really? Howie was ten years older than Eurus. That’s unusual, don’t you think? A fifteen year old playing with a five year old girl?”

“I didn’t mean he played with her. They were neighbours. They saw each other. Our land has a common boundary. They probably saw each other there sometimes.”

“Mycroft never mentioned it. Eurus wasn’t allowed to play on the grounds by herself. Mycroft doesn’t remember Howie making himself friendly.”

“I. I. Suppose. I heard stories. That’s all. Just. I shouldn’t have spoken to the journalist who called. I. I was.”

“A bit under the weather?”

John had seen the signs of excessive drinking already. He’d have known them from Harry’s past, even without years of medical experience and familiarity with Sherlock’s piercing observations. The broken blood vessels, the red eyes, the shakes. Buttons done up, mismatched. The scent of too much aftershave, covering up a stale smell of alcohol.

“A bit,” admitted Garrideb warily.

“Well, the Holmes-Watson family will be moving along again soon, Musgrave Hall will be sold, and you’ll sleep better.”

Garrideb’s eyes widened in what John could only think of as bleak alarm.

“Oh. Yes. Right. No, I’m not…”

“Good day, Mr Garrideb. Rosie, don’t throw Bunny at your Daddy, or I’ll keep him in my pocket with Ducky. Oh, there, darling, Papa didn’t mean to be mean. Here’s Bunny, here’s Ducky.”

Rosie clutched onto the two soft toys and gnawed on Ducky’s yellow head as John steered the pushchair into the street and back towards Musgrave Hall.

“Well?” asked John.

“Yes. I think I have to take another look at it,” said Sherlock.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once upon a time, a little boy who was all alone was sent far from home. Once upon a time, a little girl fell into a well and died. And now, today, the truth about Eurus, the Garridebs and that awful day will come out.

John checked the safety rope was still well-anchored to a sturdy beech tree near the well. He’d placed Rosie in her push chair further away but facing him so he could see her. She was squirming unhappily in her own safety harness.

“It’s all right, sweetie,” he called out to her, “Daddy’s just helping Papa look in the well. See?” He waved to her. Rosie stared at him quizzically, then scrunched up her eyes and yelled.

John edged over to the well and looked into the darkness. “Sherlock, have you found whatever the hell you were looking for?”

Sherlock was standing shin-deep in stagnant water at the bottom of the well, wrapped securely in the polypropylene rope they’d bought at the hardware store in the village.

“I don’t know what I’m looking for John!” Sherlock called up in an aggrieved tone. “I told you.”

“Well, Rosie is losing patience at being stuck in the pushchair, so I suggest you finish with the not knowing what you’re after and get back up here before one of your parents finds you down that bloody well.”

“I’m a grown adult, John, not a child of five. They’ll be…”

“Sherlock. I am a grown man and I am still twitchy as fuck whenever I see you near the edge of anything higher than a coffee table. I really don’t want your mum to find you sodding about at the bottom of that fucking well.”

Sherlock was silent a moment, and then he bent down and jerked twice on the rope.

“You could just say you’re ready to come up,” grumbled John down into the damp darkness.

“Not just yet!” The rope jerked again as he fished around for the thing that had bumped against his foot.

“Make up your mind.”

“Got it. Right. Bring me up.”

John braced one foot on the side of the well and, with his coat wrapped around his hands to avoid rope burn, he began to pull Sherlock back up. Behind him, Rosie cried, and he paused from time to time to glance back at her.

“Shush, honey. Rosie, shush. I’m right. Here. I’ll be. With you. In a second. Just have. To get. Your lumbering great. Papa. Out of. This bloody. Well.”

“Stop talking, you’ll get me out faster,” Sherlock called up to him.

John mouthed rude words in Sherlock’s general direction, but concentrated on hauling him back into the daylight. Finally, Sherlock’s hands scrabbled at the edge of the well, then got a better grip. John seized him by the wrists, pulled him further out. As soon as Sherlock was standing on firm ground again, John groaned and limped over to Rosie, clutching his aching back.

“Just what in God’s name are you two doing?”

Sherlock, tugging at the rope which had tightened around his waist and in loops under his thighs, winced at the sound of his mother’s voice gone shrill.

“Mummy, everything’s f-“

“Don’t you Mummy-it’s-fine me, William Sherlock Scott Holmes. What the absolute blue blazes have you been doing down that godforsaken well?”

“Mother, I…”

“If your brother had found you skylarking around like this, I don’t know what he would have done!”

“I was _not_ skylarking…”

“Leandra, we…”

“We could hear Rosie crying from the front garden, I don’t even know-“

“Rosie is perfectly all right!”

“-what you were thinking!”

“Johnnie! What fresh hell are you two up to now?” Harry’s eyebrows were raised at them, taking in Leandra’s distressed state, Rosie wriggling in John’s arms and Sherlock, damp, slimy and bedraggled, wrenching off the last of the harness they’d fashioned from rope.

“Sherlock?” This from Giles, and right behind him was Mycroft, manoeuvring with walking stick.

“What the devil are you up to, Sherlock?” snarled Mycroft.

“Oh, this is just _marvellous_. The whole _circus_ has come to town,” Sherlock grumbled as he straightened his shirt and trousers and turned to place a calming hand on Rosie’s back. That was mostly so he could collect his own calmness too, as he and John exchanged _Knew this would be trouble/So what’s new?_ looks.

Then Sherlock’s head shot up at movement in his peripheral vision and his voice rang out across the meadow. “Stop right there!”

A man halted some distance away, facing the unexpected family gathering on the Holmes side of the property line.

“Did you come looking for this, Mr Garrideb?” From his trouser pocket, Sherlock drew an oblong of waterlogged leather. “Or were you expecting me to find it?”

The man in the meadow stared. Even from a distance, his anguish was unmistakable.

“No. I. No.”

“It is yours, though. It’s what you came to look for. You decided to come looking for it after you encountered John and me in the village. ”

John Garrideb shook his head, his expression only growing more anguished.

Sherlock peeled back one end of the leather, showing it to be a case, the clip that had once held it closed rusted to nothing. He shook the object within it onto his palm.

“It was a well-made knife, when it was new,” said Sherlock. “American make, Col. Littleton I believe. Two three-inch stainless steel blades folded into a bone handle. Handsome. Expensive, for a ten year old boy.”

Garrideb continued to shake his head..

“It’s hard to make out now,” said Sherlock, voice calm but carrying. “But a name was engraved on the handle. James Winter.”

“See…”

“James. How did your knife get into this well? How did my sister die?”

John Garrideb had started to cry. “I’m not James Winter. That’s not me anymore. My name is John Garrideb.”

“It is _now_ , but your name was once James Winter. Your father was the American forger, Jim Winter, AKA Jamie Evans, AKA Killer Evans, who served time in Pontiac Correctional Centre in Illinois for the murder of his partner in fraud, Rodger Prescott. In fact, he began to serve his sentence in I’d say early 1980. Isn’t that so?”

John Garrideb stared at Sherlock in shock. So did everybody else.

“Sherlock?” Leandra asked tentatively. Frightened.

“How… how do you know?” Garrideb stumbled towards him. Halted. Took a few more steps. “How could you possible know?”

“You live in a small village. People talk. Incessantly. This morning, I asked a few oblique questions at the café. And then I listened. To all the people telling me about the people who lived next to Musgrave Hall, at Ryder Farm. There’s a lot of talk about you. That nice Mr Garrideb, who it transpires changed his name to escape association with his father, a convicted killer. Such a nice fellow, who came to live with his cousins at Ryder Farm some years after that terrible tragedy at the Hall. Came down after living with more distant relatives in Scotland. I made a few phone calls on the walk home to confirm the details. Called in a few favours.  Then I went into the well to see what might be found to help me understand what happened that day. And I found this knife. Your knife.”

“Yes,” said John Garrideb, formerly James Winter. “It’s mine.”

“What did you do to my sister?” Sherlock’s tone was hard, chilly, demanding.

“Nothing. It was an accident. It was a terrible accident.” He was weeping.

Giles held grimly onto Leandra’s hand. John had passed Rosie into Harry’s arms and he stood near Sherlock, a protective shadow. Mycroft, knuckles white on the walking stick, teeth gritted, gave Garrideb a look that had cowed kings.

Sherlock held an open hand towards Garrideb. “Tell me.”

*

_Jimmy Winter has been in his uncle’s house for less than 12 hours and already he hates it._

_In the last month he’s felt lost and confused; alone and afraid. His father did a very bad thing and was taken away. People he didn’t know, in suits and shiny shoes, have told him his father will not be given back to him for a very long time. Some of the people in suits have tried to be kind to Jimmy, who has only just turned ten, but most of them look harried and impatient and not very interested in Killer Evans’s little boy. Chip off the old block, they think. Jimmy knows they think that._

_Jimmy Winter’s dad isn’t much, but he tries. They like each other, Jimmy and his Dad, and anyway, he was all Jimmy had. Now Jimmy is alone. The harried people in suits waited while he packed a bag. They took him to the airport. They sent him away, with one of the kinder ones, so that he’s even more removed from the father he won’t see for years and years. (Or ever again, but he doesn’t know that yet.)_

_“You’ve got family in England, Jimmy,” said the kind-but-harried woman next to him on the plane. “They’ll take care of you.”_

_For a few hours he was excited more than scared. His first journey on a plane. They gave him a colouring book and juice. When the pretty stewards served a dinner up in little pots and containers, a bit like the TV dinners they have at home but nicer, the woman – Miss Starr – let him have her dessert too._

_Then his father’s cousin, Alexander Garrideb, met him at the airport and complained the whole drive back to his home._

_Alexander talked the whole time about how rotten Jimmy’s dad is. “A thug,” said Alexander, “Always was. Always knew he’d come to a bad end.”_

_Alexander talked about how rotten Jimmy was too, which Jimmy thought wasn’t fair. Alexander said how he didn’t really want Jimmy, another mouth to feed and the farm isn’t doing all that well. “Don’t you think you’ll get an easy time of it” said Alexander, and “don’t think you’ll get away with anything”._

_Jimmy wanted to say “send me home then, if you don’t want me” but he didn’t. He’s only ten but he knows there’s no going home again for a long time._

_But being unwanted and lonely and small he can deal with. He’s been those things most of his life. He doesn’t hate those things as much as he hates, after 12 hours, the house of the Garridebs and everyone in it. Alexander, who doesn’t want him. Nathan, Alexander’s oldest son, who looks at him like he’s dogshit on his shoe._

_And Nathan’s brother Howie, 15 years old, who has called Jimmy nothing but ‘Hymie’ or ‘Filthy Yank’ since Jimmy got out of the car. Who has laughed at how Jimmy speaks, and how he doesn’t know the right words for anything anymore. Who says he hopes Jimmy’s father will be hanged, and mimes it, eye bugging out._

_Howie Garrideb, who has snatched the folding stainless steel Col. Littleton knife, his tenth birthday present from his Dad, out of Jimmy’s bag as he was unpacking in the room they were meant to share, and run off, holding it above his head._

_Howie runs right out into the yard, across the unfamiliar field that doesn’t look or smell like anything Jimmy’s ever seen in Chicago._

_Jimmy chases after him. “Knives are useful”, Dad had said, giving him the grown-up gift. “Never know when you’re going to need one in a scrape.” (And that’s how Dad’s friend Rodger ended up stabbed, with Dad’s own knife. Self-defence, Dad said, but the jury didn’t believe him. Not the first time he’d killed in self-defence, turns out. Killer Evans. The name didn’t spring out of nothing.)_

_Jimmy runs after Howie, yelling “Give me back my knife! I’ll stab you with it! I will!”_

_“Then they’ll hang you too!” laughs Howie. He stops at a circular mound of mossy stones denoting an old well in the field. The huge circle of wood that capped the well has been smashed through where it was brittle. Howie grins at Jimmy, holds up the knife and drops it in the hole that’s as big as Jimmy’s head._

_Jimmy stands with his hands in fists and called Howie Garrideb every bad name he knows._

_Howie shoves Jimmy in the chest, knocking him over. “I don’t want you here anyway,” says Howie. “I don’t want to share my room with you. I don’t want to share my Dad with you. Go home, you Yank.”_

_Howie runs back to the house, leaving Jimmy crying angrily in the long grass. Jimmy gets up after a while, and finds the rock that Howie has used to break the wood over the closed-up well. Bored, maybe. Destructive in his resentment at suddenly having a new brother he doesn’t want._

_Jimmy’s anger and grief give him strength to smash and smash until the wood cracks around the bolts holding it down. Jimmy is pretty resourceful. He’s had to be on his own a lot. He finds a broken branch on the ground and uses it to lever up more of the wood, which turns out to be rotten in the centre._

_He leans over the edge of the well, but it’s useless. He can see that the well’s too deep. It’s too far to climb. He’ll never get his knife back._

_He feels like his Dad’s been taken away from him again, and it’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair._

_Jimmy is crying and snotty and dirty and he’s not going back to that house with those people ever again. He’d rather run away. Live in the forest here, like a wild boy. Like Jesse James. Like Robin Hood. He’ll do that and wait for his Dad to get out of prison, and then they’ll go on the lam together. They’ll be outlaws together and to hell with anyone else._

_Jimmy, still crying, walks away from Ryder Farm. He doesn’t care where. Just away._

_That’s how he comes to find the other big house, on the other side of the big field. He assumes everyone there will be horrible too, but he’s tired. He’s tired and sad and lonely and he’s lost his knife and his Dad forever, and nothing will ever be good again._

_He sits on the ground underneath a big tree, with his hands over his head, and he cries and cries and cries, with his eyes scrunched shut, pretending he’s not here in this place he hates._

_He doesn’t know she’s there until she speaks._

_“Hello,” she says. “Don’t cry.”_

_He peers at her from between his elbows and makes his meanest face. “Leave me alone. Go away. I don’t want you.”_

_The little girl with the dark, wavy hair and the big grey-blue eyes only looks at him with interest._

_“But you came to **my** house. I heard you crying so I decided to investigate. I like investigating things. I’m good at it. Why are you sad?”_

_“I’m not sad,” he snaps._

_“Don’t be silly. People only cry when they’re sad. You’re American,” she asserts, squatting down opposite him. “I like your accent. You’re like people on TV. My brother Mycroft has been teaching me about America. Is it really full of presidents and astronauts? I hope it is. I’d like to be an astronaut. Or a president. I want to see the stars. Mycroft’s going to teach me about those too. He’s gone to get his books.”_

_Jimmy sniffs and wipes his nose on his sleeve. The little girl looks at him solemnly and then pulls a grubby tissue from a pocket in her dress. She hands it to him. He wipes his nose on it._

_“Don’t be sad,” she says, “Mycroft will be here in a minute. He’ll find us something fun to do. Or you can tell him what made you sad. He’s good at fixing things. What made you sad?”_

_She’s so softly spoken, so genuinely interested in him, that Jimmy finds himself telling her about having to leave America, and nobody wanting him, and Howie throwing his special birthday present knife into the well. He introduces himself as Jimmy and learns her name is Eurus._

_“That’s a funny name,” he says._

_“It’s from the Greek and it means East Wind,” she tells him. “My brother’s name means the mouth of the stream that runs in the croft. That’s a closed field. It’s Old English.”_

_“My name’s just short for James.” He sighs. “Do you reckon your brother could get my knife back?”_

_“He might,” says Eurus. She looks over her shoulder towards the house, with the door ajar. “Let’s investigate!” She puts on a very serious face. “I will assess the situation and report to Mycroft. He’ll know what to do. My brother’s the smartest boy in the world.”_

_“Why would he help me?” Jimmy is hopeful and suspicious all at once._

_Then she grins, suddenly all five years old again. “I’ll ask him to! And I’ll tell him all about the lie of the land. He likes it when I’m clever. It will be an adventure!”_

_They walk to the well – it’s not far – and Eurus sings a song about trees, and says it’s a secret song she and her brother made together._

_She talks about her brother a lot, and Jimmy is a little bit jealous, but he also thinks, “Maybe we could be friends, this Mycroft boy and Eurus and me. Maybe this won’t be so awful after all.”_

_Eurus climbs onto the edge of the well and peers down. She drops a stone into it and listens for the splash. She does it again. “It’s deep,” she says, “It’s almost two seconds until the stone hits the water. I think that’s 50 feet.”_

_“How can you tell?”_

_She starts to explain about the speed of gravity, and how there’s no wind resistance, so the calculation is really very simple._

_Eurus is standing on the edge of the ring of stones, over the open mouth of the well. She is writing the equation on an imaginary blackboard. He’s worried she’s going to fall. The moss looks slippery._

_“Careful,” he says, holding a hand out to her._

_He doesn’t know how it happens._

_Years later. Decades later. He thinks and thinks. And he never knows how it happened._

_His new friend Eurus laughs and says it’s fine. She dances away from him, hands in the air, to show off her excellent balance and her fearlessness._

_His brand new friend steps on a stone and her ankle rolls, or she slips on the moss, or she trips on one of the bolts that used to hold the now broken wooden cap in place._

_She falls._

_She doesn’t even scream._

_Not till she lands. A short, sharp sound. Then silence._

_“Eurus!” Jimmy leans over and peers into the well. “Eurus!”_

_He can see her in there. In the water. Her face a pale moon 50 feet down. The sound of her whimper echoes up the walls of the old well._

_“Stand up!” he calls._

_She whimpers._

_“I’ll get help!” he shouts._

_Eurus’s house is at one end of the field, but it’s further away than the Garridebs’ house._

_Jimmy runs. He runs so fast. He runs to find Alexander so he can rescue his friend Eurus._

_But he finds Howie, who doesn’t know why Jimmy is running, face red, heart thumping. Howie still resents this sudden intruder into a home already thin on love.  There’s not enough to share._

_Howie, angry, doesn’t listen when Jimmy, gasping for air, tries to explain that they need to come quick to save Eurus. What Howie does is push Jimmy into the Boot Room, slam the door shut. He holds it shut as the door rattles._

_Howie has been shut in the Boot Room with the wellingtons and the raincoats and umbrellas before. The handle doesn’t work properly from inside. Howie suspects Nathan did that to the handle. They’re not friends, him and Nathan, and it seems like Nathan’s always playing mean tricks on him._

_“Let me out!” screams Jimmy, “Please! Please! Eurus fell in the well! We have to help her! Please!”_

_Howie holds the door shut for a moment longer and then realises what Jimmy is saying._

_He opens the door to the Boot Room. Jimmy practically falls on the floor._

_“Eurus fell in the well!” he cries out, “We have to help her!”_

_Howie stares a moment longer, then moves. He runs upstairs, to his father’s office, yelling: “Dad! Dad! Jimmy says that weird kid fell in the well!”_

_Cursing them both, and shouting that nobody should be playing anywhere near that damned well, Alexander Garrideb lumbers down the stairs and out the front door. He starts to run stiffly across the field towards the well. And then he stops._

_Ahead of them, on the unfenced border of the grounds to Musgrave Hall – Holmes lets the Garridebs cattle graze there sometimes – Leandra Holmes is screaming for her daughter while her husband holds their awkward son, that too-smart chubby kid, Mycroft, in a tight hold._

_“Giles!” shouts Alexander, “What’s happened.”_

_“Eurus!” Giles Holmes calls back, anguish cracking his voice. His boy Mycroft is struggling in his father’s arms, trying to get to the well. “Eurus fell in the well.”_

_“Is… is she all right?”_

_“No,” says Giles._

_Leandra wails._

_Mycroft screams, “Eurus! Eurus!”_

_None of them have to say their little girl is dead._

_It’s as clear as day._

_Alexander Garrideb tells the boys to return to the house._

_Jimmy protests._

_Alexander grabs him by the arm and drags him back inside. “Nothing we can do now. What did you do, you little bastard?”_

_“Nothing! I didn’t do anything!”_

_“Like hell it was nothing.”_

_Howie doesn’t say a word. He’s deathly pale and he doesn’t say a single bloody word, about breaking the cap on the well. About dropping Jimmy’s knife down it._

It’s my fault _, thinks Jimmy._ I made the hole bigger. I took her to the well. It’s my fault.

_He is like his father. He really, really is._

_Jimmy Winter doubles over in the hall and vomits all over the carpet. He shakes. He shakes. He can’t stop shaking._

_He’s ten years old and he has just killed a little girl._

_And he’s never going to sleep a whole night through ever again._

*

“Alexander drove me to the station and we took a train to Scotland that very afternoon, leaving Nathan to look after the farm and Howie,” said John Garrideb in a leaden voice. “Nobody in the village here even knew I existed. I went to live with Alexander’s older brother, Hamilton, in Stonehaven.  They made me change my name to John Garrideb, so Jimmy Winter would never be traced. They never told a soul what happened at the well. They let me believe I’d…” He trailed off. “When Hamilton died just a few years later, I had to come back to live with Alexander. You. Your family. You were leaving Musgrave Hall. I wanted to. I wanted to come over. To tell you. But Alexander wouldn’t let me leave the house. Shut me in my room. He. He said I’d be hanged for murder if I told anyone. I was fourteen. Oh, Jesus.”

He buried his face in large, rough hands. “I’m sorry. I’m. I didn’t know. I never knew what to do. I left again, as soon as I could. I’ve stayed away. But Howie’s got cancer now, and Nathan’s not interested in the cattle, so I came back to help. And I guess. I guess people talk. I guess I’ve talked. When I drink. Which is. Which is. All the time. When that reporter called me about your family selling Musgrave Hall, all I could think of was that sweet little girl who was the first friendly person I ever met in this country. How I let her down.”

John Garrideb, formerly Jimmy Winter, looked into Sherlock’s eyes.

“You look like her. Same eyes. When I met you today, I thought. I thought. I never meant to hurt her. I tried to save her. I wanted to save her.”

“Is that why you came to look for the knife?” Sherlock challenged him. “Because you felt bad that my sister died and your family covered it up? How did you intend to go down? Oh. Oh of course. You didn’t.”

Garrideb flinched. “No. I didn’t come to look for the knife. I came. I came to tell Mr Holmes.” He looked over Sherlock’s shoulder to Giles Holmes, clutching hard to his wife’s hand, staring at him with an expression so full of tumbled feelings that it seemed like a storm had taken possession of his soul. “I came to tell you what happened. So you can take me to the police. So we can make an end to it. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. She was so kind to me. I didn’t mean.  It was an accident. I’m so sorry.”

“What the hell are you people doing to my cousin?”

Sherlock’s chin jerked up at the new entrant to this stunned tableau. Howie Garrideb limped towards them across the meadow, one hand in his overcoat, the other clenched in a fist. “Jimmy, get away from them.”

“It’s too late, Howie,” said John Garrideb, turning, ashen face streaked in tears, “They know. I told them everything.”

“No,” growled Howie. “We didn’t spend all these years protecting you for you to mess it up now.”

“You weren’t protecting me. Your father was protecting _you_.”

“Not bloody likely.”

Sherlock saw it coming – in the tension in Howie’s shoulders, and the shift of his leg; in the darting of his desperate gaze and the uneven weight in the pocket of his coat, and how the coat bunched as his hand closed around the weapon.

Sherlock moved towards the sick man as he tugged an antique pistol from his pocket.

John wrapped his arms round Rosie and his sister and pull them down, covering Rosie with his body while Harry instinctively curled around the little girl as well, between them making a shelter.

Mycroft raised his walking stick and stumbled towards the Garridebs.

Leandra cried out as Howie waved the gun, threatening but not aiming, yet too wild to be trusted with the thing.

But Sherlock was there, Giles right beside him, and Howie, if he’d ever intended to do more than brandish the aged weapon, was disarmed and thrown to the ground before he’d even claimed a target.

Giles, his fists bunched in Howie’s coat, was almost banging Howie’s head against the ground.

“No!” protested John Garrideb, “Stop! He’s sick!”

But it was Mycroft’s voice that broke through. Mycroft’s voice raised in furious, heart-cracking anguish.

“ _You killed my sister_. You let her _die_.”Mycroft stumbled again as he lurched towards John Garrideb, walking stick brandished, and he fell to his knees. The stick flew away into the grass beyond his reach and he struggled to rise, unable to get the prosthetic foot beneath him.

“She needn’t have died,” Mycroft cried out feverishly, crawling towards John Garrideb as Garrideb backed away in horror. “You should have come to me. I was _right there_. I was _right there in the house_ , _looking_ for her! If you’d come to me I could have reached her in time! I could have _saved her_. You let my sister drown! Eurus broke her leg. She couldn’t stand in the water! Eurus couldn’t stand and _she fell under the water_! You let her _drown_ , you stupid man. You cretin! _You stupid boy_!! _You let my sister drown_!”

The last word broke into fragments as Mycroft’s grief split out of him, like lightning and thunder combined, like the sound of stone cracking in two, a howl of fury and pain so primal it transmitted hurt.

Sherlock left Howie Garrideb weeping in the dirt and ran to his brother. He slid to his knees and wrapped long arms around a man he’d almost never seen cry, never seen lost, never seen broken. Sherlock pulled Mycroft against his body, tucked his brother’s face against his throat, held him tight and rocked him.

“I’ve got you,” Sherlock said helplessly, not knowing what else to say. “Mycroft. Mycroft. I’ve got you.”

Leandra knelt beside Sherlock, and she stroked her eldest son’s hair with trembling fingers. Giles knelt opposite and stroked Mycroft’s back. “Sshh, darling boy. Ssshh.”  He bent to kiss the top of Mycroft’s head, and the three of them enveloped him as he sobbed like a child.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the truth, new friendships are cemented; lovers reconnect; and a family grows toward a better future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more story to go to conclude the Alternative series.

Harry stood by the door of Musgrave Hall, smoking in the shadows. Down the drive, barely visible behind the dark shape of the oak tree, Mycroft was sitting in his wheelchair. She couldn’t tell from here if he was brooding, dozing, hiding or still crying.

Leandra and Giles had said to leave him be. _He needs his time alone._

What a fucking day.

When the guts got ripped out of the world next to that creepy old well, Harry had stood helplessly aside after John had helped her up with Rosie. He’d scooped his squawling daughter into his arms to rock her and whisper that everything was all right. Presumably until he believed it himself.

John Garrideb, or Jimmy Winter she supposed, was sitting on the ground with his cousin Howie, who looked too ill to rise, while the Holmes family closed ranks around Mycroft.

Harry did the only sensible thing she could do. She went back to the house to fetch Mycroft’s wheelchair, because he was obviously not going to be walking on that bloody prosthetic for a while.

When she returned, John was sitting on the ground with the Holmeses, leaning against Sherlock who had an arm around him, his other hand holding onto Rosie’s fingers. She’d stopped crying at least, poor kid. Mycroft, eyes closed, was leaning against his father. Harry brought the chair up to them and Giles and Sherlock helped Mycroft into the chair.

Leandra, stony-faced, addressed the Garridebs, who were still sitting on the hard ground. “Go to the police tomorrow. Don’t come to me again,” she said tightly. “Don’t leave. Don’t run. Don’t ask me to forgive you. Not yet. My baby died because of your family.”

John Garrideb shook his head but didn’t outright argue with her.

“I don’t want to see you,” she said again. She turned her back on her neighbours, who were as ruined as the rest of them, and stumbled. Harry put an arm cautiously around Leandra, ready for rejection, but the older woman seemed grateful for the support.

Once in the house, tea was made and drunk. Rosie had calmed and been thoroughly checked by her fathers, proving she’d been no more than frightened by the sudden push to the ground, cradled as she had been between John and Harry.

Rosie had been changed now, and was being fed and coddled by Sherlock and John together. Mycroft had declared he needed some air and wheeled himself away.

 _He needs his time alone,_ Mycroft’s parents had said.

Maybe he did.

Harry thought of all the times she’d gone off to be alone, seething or ashamed or feeling that rejecting others was surely better than waiting to be shown the door herself. Hell, that was why she wasn’t married anymore. _Reject before you can be rejected._

People, she thought, are very stupid.

Harry finished her cigarette, dropped the butt and stubbed it out with the toe of her shoe. She waited for the shakes to pass, and knew that the urge to drink wouldn’t.

She took a steadying breath and walked down the drive to Mycroft.

“Hey,” she said to the still shape in his chair. She waited for him to tell her to go away. He didn’t.

“Smoke?” she offered, taking one out for herself. He held out his hand. She lit the one in her hand, drawing in a short breath to get it burning, then transferred it to his fingers. Mycroft took a long drag while she lit one for herself.

After a short while of silent smoking, Mycroft asked waspishly, “Have you come to be kind to me?”

Harry leaned against the oak and sent a smoke ring into the branches above.

Eventually she said, "Mary sat with me, in your parents’ house, after my father was burned to death in that car. My hands all burned to fuck. Told me she couldn’t unfuck my life for me. Smartest thing anyone had said to me all week, by that stage.”

“Ah. _Saint Mary_.”

“Oh, totally fuck you, Mycroft Holmes,” Harry snarled, “Don’t you fucking dare.”

He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. I know… that was my fault.”

“Oh no you don’t.” Harry pushed away from the tree and jabbed her cigarette at him for emphasis. “Just. Fucking. Stop. It. And fuck that hangdog face as well. You know what? This shit? This shit is complicated. My therapist is going to make his fucking fortune trying to help me unfuck my life. But the number one thing he said is that we all have burdens enough from the things we _actually_ did. We’ve got enough monkeys on our backs. We don’t have to stagger around the circus picking up random fucking monkeys to add to the shit-slinging zoo we’ve already got. You want to talk about useless guilt? I burned down our house, and Johnnie, Mum and me ended up with nothing, fucking nothing, but the clothes on our backs when my piece of shit father gave our mum brain damage. I ran away, dragging my little brother with me, and I made him live rough for two years thinking I was helping. Then I got so legless fucking drunk he thought I was dying and called an ambulance, and then blamed himself when I got sent to prison for all the shit I did so we could survive. I never said goodbye to him before he went off to war because I was pissed off with him for even joining up, and he nearly fucking died. I’ve got so many fucking monkeys on my back it’s like _Planet of the Apes_ up there. And when that bitch Kate or Emelia or the fuck framed me to murder people including my own prick of a dad, it was because I was so soaked all the time that it was easy to use me. I was scared I’d actually _done_ it! My own brother thought I was capable of it. And even when your brother logicked it out that it wasn't me, I didn’t have the first clue how to feel. Glad he was dead? Sick at how he died? Relieved? Angry? Cheated? All of the above? Fucked if I know even now. Fucked if I know how to be kind either.”

Harry drew to a halt, breathing heavily, as Mycroft stared at her with wide eyes as his cigarette burned down. She took a breath.

“Fuck this guilt thing, Mycroft. You’ve got so many monkeys on your back. You’d have to be a moron not to see the circus you carry around, even if you act like it’s nothing. But it’s all just shitty. The person who killed Mary is the bitch who pulled the trigger on her and on you. What happened to your sister is just horrible, but you were all just kids. Maybe it’s nobody’s fault. Maybe it’s everybody’s. But what does it matter now? It is what it is, and you don’t deserve what happened to you. And I’m not saying that to be kind. If even my awful fucking father didn’t deserve to burn to death, you sure as fuck don’t deserve to feel like Mary and Eurus were your fault, or that you lost your leg to make it _even_.”

The ash fell from Mycroft’s neglected cigarette and he twitched as it landed on his lap. He brushed the ember and ash clear then made himself politely enquire: “Are you done?”

Harry smiled wearily. “I guess so. I don't actually know what I've come for. Seemed the thing. It sucks to be hanging onto all those monkeys and be alone too. I'll piss off back to the house if you want.”

Mycroft swallowed. He met her gaze. “No. It’s fine. I’m simply… not used to having company at the circus.”

Harry nodded. She passed him the remains of her cigarette.

“What did your therapist advise?” Mycroft asked after a moment.

"Crazy shit. I did what he suggested though. I went to my dad’s grave and told the dirt I was sorry he'd died so horribly, but it didn't mean I thought he was anything but a cruel and useless bastard.”

“Any ghostly replies or visitations?”

“Ha. No. He wasn’t there, as per fucking usual. But it wasn’t about him. It was about me, saying what I needed to say, even if it was contradictory and nobody but me was listening. You just get it out, so it's said. Probably doesn't help but maybe it doesn't hurt. I can't tell.”

Mycroft blew smoke into the branches. “I've been angry with Eurus for 36 years. And with myself.” He tilted his head to one side, stuck the cigarette between his lips and moved his wheelchair to get a better view. “Is that Leonis up there?”

Harry squinted at it too. “Yep. There’s Regulus, see. Goes up there to – what’s it called? Gamma Leonis-“

“Algieba.”

“Yeah.” She traced the path with her fingertip. “Then Zeta Leonis.”

“Adhafera.”

“Right. So those are his head and mane. And there’s Beta Leonis at its arse end.”

“Denebola. Literally ‘the lion’s tail.”

“Patrick Moore knew his shit.”

“He was a master.”

“Hmm.”

“The pack, please.”

Harry handed over the whole pack of cigarettes. Mycroft shook out the contents, handed them back to Harry, and split the box open to make a flat surface. With a pen from his top pocket, Mycroft wrote a few lines in it and folded it up again.

“If you’d be so kind,” he said, “There should be a tin under the roots of the oak tree. Just there. Left a little. That’s it.”

“You want me to put my hand in there?”

“How will I know if there’s a wild badger in it if you don’t?”

Harry laughed and shoved her hand into the hollow. She brought out a small Three Nuns tobacco tin and handed it to him. With a little effort, Mycroft was able to pry the tin open. He put the folded message into it, sealed the tin up and handed it back. Harry, without a word, tucked it back into the space under the roots of the oak.

“It probably won’t help, but perhaps it won’t hurt,” he said.

*

Mycroft had gone for some air. Harry had disappeared too. Giles and Leandra were sitting side by side in front of the low-burning fireplace, holding hands. Silent.

Rosie had finally fallen asleep in the bright orange portable fold-out cot in front of the second sofa where Sherlock sat watching her. John, who’d relinquished Rosie to her cot after finally realising his own anxiety was keeping her fractious, watched Sherlock’s clasped hands, thumbs rubbing over and across his knuckles time and again. Self-soothing.

“Giles, Leandra,” said John, “I don’t want to impose but I don’t want to wake Rosie. Is it all right if I leave her with you for a little while?”

“No trouble at all,” said Leandra, brightening a little. “She’s a dear.”

“If she wakes before we’re back, there’s formula and nappies…”

“We’ve got it John,” said Giles kindly.

“Yeah. Right. Come on Sherlock. You need to get changed out of those clothes.”

Sherlock glanced at the legs of his trousers, still damp and spattered in algae from the well. Smears of slime all over. He nodded jerkily, but when he rose he was making an effort to appear unaffected.

The effort was failing. His hands clenched convulsively, and his jaw was so tight a nerve was jumping at the side of his mouth. John took him by the elbow out to the motorhome, almost stumbling over the cable linking it to household electricity.

“Up you go,” murmured John, guiding Sherlock ahead of him up the stairs into the vehicle Sherlock had hired for this trip, specifically so he could get time away from ‘tedious family drama’. John flicked on the light, shut the door and opened the tiny cupboard which was mostly full of Sherlock’s clothes. “Want a shower?”

“No. Yes. No. I. John.”

John turned at the tremor in Sherlock’s voice. “Sherlock?” Sherlock was pale. Eyes blinking hard. A wash of panic still in them. John draped the clean clothes over the bench and went to him. “Hey. It’s okay.”

“I thought Howie Garrideb was going to shoot you.”

“I know.”

“The gun wasn’t even loaded.”

“You weren’t to know that. I should have…”

“No. You were right. To make Rosie safe.”

John took Sherlock’s face in his hands and pressed close to him. “I know. And you and Giles made sure we were all safe.”

“I thought he was going to shoot you.”

“You stopped him.”

“If he’d hurt you.”

“I’m fine.”

“If he’d hurt you, I’d have broken his fucking legs and thrown him in that damned well. If he’d killed you, I’d have watched him drown.”

“I know.” John kissed Sherlock’s jaw, his cheek, his trembling mouth. “But he didn’t.”

Sherlock clasped John to him, nose buried in John’s hair. He kissed, frantic-hard, John’s temple and cheek, his mouth, kissing a gruff, desperate sound against his lips.  His body surged against John’s and then he pulled away, gasping, “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

John reached for Sherlock and pulled him close, kissing his mouth, his throat. “Don’t be. Come here.”  He slid his hands underneath Sherlock’s soiled shirt, fingers warm against cool skin. Sherlock leaned into him again, kissing, then pressing his nose in under John’s throat to breathe in the heat and scent of him.

John tugged Sherlock’s shirt out of his waistband, then pulled back to undo the buttons. He stopped between buttons to kiss Sherlock, while Sherlock interrupted progress to kiss John’s face, to nibble at John’s fingers and suck on his wrists. John kicked off his shoes and they guided each other, between kisses half frantic, half devotional, to the double bed tucked at the back of the vehicle.  

They held each other, hands roaming, stroking, seeking a reassurance in touch that each was whole and present. Their mouths smeared over cheeks and throats, shoulders, chest, arms and wrists and fingers, returning time and again to each other’s lips, tongues, breathing in each other’s breaths. Sherlock covered John’s body with his own, straddling John’s sturdy thigh, and they rutted together; John, a leg hooked over Sherlock’s hip, turned them so that he could kiss Sherlock’s face and chest all over. He sucked on Sherlock’s lower lip and pushed his cock against Sherlock’s belly. Sherlock’s hands on John’s arse guided him closer.

They moved again, side by side now, legs slotted together, hips rolling so that their pricks slid, trapped between their bodies and slick with need. Breathing in each other’s panting breaths, swallowing each other's soft keening cries. Fingers caressing skin, sliding through sweat-damp hair, lips tasting the salt on each other’s cheeks, and at last, and soon, Sherlock cried out as he came, his eyes pressed to John’s throat and then John came, forehead pressed to Sherlock’s cheek.

And they subsided, holding each other, and let their breathing calm, in synch.

John nuzzled under Sherlock’s chin. Lipped at his skin. He ran a hand along Sherlock’s ribs then wrapped his arm across Sherlock’s back and pulled him close. Sherlock had stopped shaking. He didn’t cling so hard, which only made John want to hold him more tightly.

“We’re going to be all right,” said John.

“We _are_ all right,” Sherlock said.

“Yes,” agreed John with a soft exhale.

Neither moved for a while. John stirred first, kissing Sherlock’s chest. Sherlock reached for the packet of wet wipes by the bed and they cleaned up. The manoeuvred around each other in the narrow space, dressing. John helped to straighten Sherlock’s collar. Sherlock tucked down the tag on the back of John’s shirt.

“Let’s walk a bit before we go back in,” suggested John.

“They’re going to know what we’ve been doing out here, whatever we do,” replied Sherlock, amused.

“I know, but let’s pretend they won’t.”

Sherlock flicked the light off again as they left the motorhome, but not before seeing Harry pushing Mycroft in his wheelchair back towards the Hall. After they’d passed, he set off in the direction his brother had just left, John at his side.

At the oak tree, Sherlock turned on his phone’s torch and looked around. “He used to leave messages to Eurus here,” he said. “It was in that song - _Ten by ten, and under she goes_.”

“And why are we here now?”

“Mycroft keeps loitering around this tree.”

“So you’re curious.”

“I’m…” Sherlock reached into a dark cavity within the roots of the tree. “Concerned.” He withdrew a round, black tobacco tin with orange borders. In white it read ‘Three Nuns Tobacco’ and a manufacturer in Glasgow. In orange, it read ‘None Nicer’. The edges of it were rusted, but the metal had flaked. “Recently opened,” concluded Sherlock, and opened it himself.

Within was a folded square of cardboard from a cigarette packet – Harry’s brand. Sherlock unfolded it. He showed the short message, written in Mycroft’s hand, to John.

 _I forgive you. Please forgive me too_.

Sherlock gently refolded and replaced the card in the tin, and placed the tin back where it belonged under the roots of the oak tree.

“Was it what you thought?” John asked.

“No,” said Sherlock, and then, “I think I have misunderstood my brother my whole life.”

“Yeah. Well. That’s more common than you’d think.”

They held hands and walked back to the hall.

The occupants were every bit as insufferable as John imagined they’d be. Harry smirked at them and then waggled mischievous eyebrows at Mycroft, who rolled his eyes in reply. Giles and Leandra looked ridiculously pleased and approving, though distracted at least from their revived grief.

Rosie didn’t care, though. She had woken up and was playing on the floor, reaching for toys. She saw John first, then Sherlock, and made happy, demanding noises as she rolled on her stomach and waved her arms and legs purposefully.

And then she was on hands and knees and crawling towards them with a determined little face. She listed, rolled, wriggled and scooted on her belly before she got knees and hands coordinated again.

Her fathers knelt on the floor side by side, hands held out to her.

“Come on Watson!” Sherlock urged, beaming at her.

“Come to Daddy and Papa!” John grinned, arms stretched out.

Rosie grunted a little, then made a surprised sound and closed the little space between them, until she could grasp Daddy’s thumb, Papa’s crisp, clean trousers in wet fingers. The men moved so that she could get between them, bumping against knees and thighs, then pull herself into sitting and held her arms up to them.

“Abababababababab!”

Sherlock bopped her on the nose with his finger and she laughed, grabbing for his hand. John waved his hand where she could see and then reached out to bop Sherlock’s nose. Rosie squealed happily, waving her arms and bouncing on the spot.

“Who’s our little shooting star?” John asked her, giggling at how she giggled.

“ _Abababababalalaalaaab!”_

“Make a wish!” called out Giles, his hand clasped in Leandra’s.

“That’s not how comets work,” grumbled Mycroft but he gave Harry a sly grin as he said it, and she snorted a laugh at him.

“ _Alaalabababaaaaa_!”

Sherlock leaned down to kiss the top of her head and made his wish, or rather, a promise.

_Rosamund. Rose of the world. Rosie. Be safe forever._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've enjoyed reading about Rosie and her dads, I'm co-writing a *crackastic* series about Rosie, John and Sherlock called [ BANG! Oops. ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11245899/chapters/25135839) a_secret_scribbler, AtlinMerrick, Winklepicker and I haven't set it within any particular continuity or AU. It's just Daddy and Papa and Little Watson, an awful lot of baby-related fluids, and the occasional tantrum. Which is possibly even Rosie's.


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